Couldn't you imagine a design company calling themselves this? Like Neasden Control Centre?
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youth marketing
Someone rang me today to ask me to speak at a youth marketing thing.
I probably sounded a little bit odd to them because while talking I was trying not to laugh at my own ridiculousness.
While getting their call I was uploading photos from my holiday, including the one above which, for me, defines holiday happiness - a vintage Roberts radio (Radio 4, of course), a nice cup of tea, a hot-cross bun and a large-print detective novel (my eyes aren't what they were).
Surely, I have no business talking about youth marketing. I'm patently a middle-aged fuddy duddy.
And yet, and yet, I do know a bit about youth marketing. And the fact that I can like all the above and still be OK at talking to 'young people' probably says something about the changing face of youth. Or maybe it just says I should start thinking about 'greys'.
fudgy wudgys
Fudgy Wudgys are sweet of the month for April. Delicious. And brilliantly simple. No strategic name development here. What's the product? Fudge. What's the name? Fudgy Wudgy. OK. Stick a couple of smiling kids on there and we're done.
get this week's new yorker
You should get this week's New Yorker. (April 10, 2006) (last week's if you're actually in New York.)
There's a splendid article about Muzak. Lots of good thinking from people who actually have to think hard about the non-verbal, non-wordy aspects of a brand. How does a brand sound? Does it like funk? Why does Armani Exchange get beatmatched segues where Ann Taylor gets a couple of seconds of silence?
And there's a great Malcolm Gladwell review of Why? by Charles Tilly. 'Why?' is about the reasons we give each other for the stuff we do and the type of reasons we give. It sounds like essential reading for anyone doing research about communications. Gladwell's illustrations sound just like the kind of mismatch you get when talking about communications with people. Their frame of reference is completely different to yours or the brand's so you get this failure to communicate - because we're thinking about different types of reason. I'm not making sense. Read the article, or better still the book, then you'll realise how clever I am for pointing it out. Honestly.
But the real reason for mentioning it is to sing the praises of Gladwell again. At the end of this review of this dry, academic book he almost had me crying on the tube. He's a genius. (Or I'm in a bad way.)
Assignment 5 - space feedback
Here's the stuff everyone did in response to this assignment. Some great stuff in here.
The winner is 'A'. I suspect you'll all agree.
Some overall thoughts:
1. Sometimes the best thing to do is get out of the way
Some brands don't need much help. Some products are just good. They don't need a ton of positioning or clever strategy. This is one of those. It's a trip to space for heaven's sake. How much do you need to dial that up? It's not one of a thousand yellow fat brands that needs some desperate extra idea to make anyone care. It's space travel.
This requires confidence and a light touch. A good name, a little bit of thought about some differentiating ideas but nothing dramatic. Let the service sell itself. It takes a smart, confident strategist to get out of the way, not to desperately try and prove your value.
2. Use the medium
Powerpoint is (should be) a brief, concise, visual tool. Use it like that. Don't use it like horizontal Word. And put some pictures in. Please. Compare the charts with pictures and the ones without. Which would you pay attention to? Brands aren't built entirely from words. Or even mostly from words. So if you're trying to sell an idea of a brand use all the tools at your disposal, think about font, layout, visuals. (But don't overcomplicate, remember that I might not be using the same version of Ppt that you're using. There's an art in building charts that travel well, without using dreaded pdfs.)
3. Pace yourself
You have five charts. What are the five most important things to get across? Should you spend three charts talking about your audience? Probably not. Husband your attention resources. Use your time well. Just because you've thought about something a lot, that doesn't mean you should talk about it a lot.
That's it
Nice work everyone. There's some great stuff in here. Have a look at other people's, you'll learn from it. Congrats to the author of 'A'. (If you send me address etc I'll send you your prizes.)
a.ppt b.ppt c.ppt d.ppt e.ppt f.ppt g.ppt h.ppt i.ppt j.ppt k.ppt l.ppt m.ppt
no comment
I'm going to be offline for a week having holidays in Wales. So no new postings for a bit. And because I've been getting a lot of comment spam recently I'm going to turn comments off too. Sorry about that. They'll be back in a week. In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves or have a go at Grant's splendid new assignment over at his blog.
I'll post the debrief to assignment 5 when I get back.
cheers